Bruce McLaren Narrates The Story of McLaren: Video

On June 2, 1970, Bruce McLaren was killed in a crash at England’s Goodwood circuit, testing his new M8D Can-Am race car. The car’s rear bodywork came loose at speed, creating a spin-inducing loss of downforce that even Bruce McLaren couldn’t correct. His M8D left the track and impacted a reinforced corner worker’s station at high speed.

McLaren was just 32 years old at the time of his death, but he’d already established himself as a talented driver, engineer and race car designer. His namesake company lives on, and is now marking five decades of success with a series of short films that seek to tell the McLaren story.

The first, seen here, is entitled “Courage,” and we think it’s an absolutely brilliant work from director Marcus Söderlund, known for his dream-like music videos. The clip shows McLaren walking to the scene of his accident, contemplating the philosophy behind his namesake company, a philosophy that is still displayed in everything McLaren does.

In Söderlund’s words, “This is Bruce McLaren's film. I love that Bruce McLaren is revisiting his crash-site, like an angel from a Frank Capra movie. The script for this film made me shiver and I wanted to recreate that feeling. I wanted to fill the film with emotions. This is how I imagine that Bruce McLaren looked at the world.”

This stunning video is the first of three produced by McLaren in honor of the company's 50th anniversary. We’ll bring you the others as they’re released by McLaren throughout 2013.